Online retailers 'underperforming in organic search'

31st July 2008

Retailers are not doing enough to fully maximise the advantages offered by organic search engine optimisation (SEO), a new report from Internet Retailer suggests.

The study tested retailers' rankings against important keywords and found that many cases saw non-retail and informational sites place higher than the online stores themselves.

Internet Retailer suggested that businesses do more to improve SEO, utilising methods like incorporating links into navigational cues and making good use of keywords.

"Appearing in natural search results is key to a website's success. Several studies have shown that consumers' eyes jump over paid results and go direct to natural," the website said.

According to the recent 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide released by research firm MarketingSherpa, global spending on search engine marketing has risen by 30 per cent this year, with the medium accounting for half of all expenditure on internet marketing in total.